The People's Budget In the News

The People's Budget in the News

In that spirit, the Congressional Progressive Caucus (CPC) — led by co-chairs Reps. Raúl M. Grijalva (D-Ariz.) and Keith Ellison (D-Minn.) — last week released its annual budget alternative, “The People’s Budget: A Roadmap for the Resistance.” The release was well-timed. With Democrats struggling to find their way out of the wilderness, the CPC budget provides a coherent vision and a comprehensive plan to achieve it. In contrast with Trump’s “skinny budget” and one-page tax blueprint, it is an impressively detailed document, prepared in conjunction with the Economic Policy Institute (EPI). It offers common-sense proposals that most Americans want to see enacted. Simply put, it represents a serious commitment to making the economy work again for everyone.

The Congressional Progressive Caucus released its annual budget today (full plan here). If past patterns hold, it will likely be ignored by the media. Of course the budget is not about to be adopted by Congress and signed by the president, but as a path forward it certainly is no less realistic than the various budgets put forward in past years by now Speaker Paul Ryan. These budgets effectively called for the elimination of the whole federal government except the military, Medicare, Medicaid, and Social Security. Nonetheless, the Ryan budgets were taken serious in Washington policy circles and even earned him a "Fiscy" award from a coalition of Peter Peterson funded groups.

The budget outlines a progressive agenda for the next decade. Put simply it cuts what the Republicans want to expand (i.e. military spending) and increases what the Republicans want to cut, such as funding for universal pre-kindergarten, Social Security, and health care spending. There is much there and I encourage people to read the EPI summary to which I linked. I will pick two items that I want to highlight.

There are no pulled punches in the CPC plan. It boldly embraces the faith that budgets are moral statements that must be specific in their intentions and in their blueprints for achieving their goals. “A budget is, above all, an ethical document. The Trump budget would rip gaping holes in the fabric of social life in America while driving the militarism of the Bannon wing of the Trump White House,” explained Congressman Jamie Raskin, a CPC vice chair and veteran legislator from Maryland. “The Progressive Caucus budget is the answer to the moral chaos of the administration. It reflects a serious commitment to the needs and priorities of the American people.”

Recognizing Social Security for the solution that it is while making clear that its funds are dedicated exclusively to the sole purpose of funding earned benefits (and the associated administrative costs) should not be a novel position. The Congressional Progressive Caucus is to be applauded for seeing this when other politicians don’t. The CPC deserves our gratitude. And the People’s Budget deserves our support.

The other budgets, which appear to commingle Social Security’s dedicated, segregated revenue with general taxes deserves our condemnation, explain why so many Americans believe that their Social Security contributions have been stolen by their government, diverted to some unauthorized purpose.

On Tuesday, the Congressional Progressive Caucus — led by Reps. Raúl M. Grijalva (D-Ariz.) and Keith Ellison (D-Minn.) — released its annual “People’s Budget” for 2018. The CPC has produced a budget for years, but with the party at a crossroads, this edition may be the most important ever. Democrats should recognize its ideas as an inspiration for the party going forward.

The People’s Budget starts by acknowledging a problem that most leaders acknowledge but few have addressed: the country’s crumbling infrastructure. It provides $2 trillion over 10 years to repair bridges and tunnels, revitalize mass transit, replace contaminated water systems, rebuild public schools and more. Furthermore, weak wage growth and other indicators demonstrate that the economy remains short of where it was before the Great Recession, and infrastructure investment can provide badly needed jobs that will help propel the economy to new heights. The Economic Policy Institute projects that the People’s Budget would add 2.4 million jobs and increase GDP by 2 percent in the near term.

WASHINGTON - An EPI Policy Center analysis of the Congressional Progressive Caucus’s The People’s Budget: A Roadmap for the Resistance, a budget alternative for fiscal year 2018, shows that the budget would raise incomes and put the United States on a path to a fairer, more equal economy. The fiscal boost provided by the People’s Budget would increase GDP by 2 percent and create 2.4 million jobs over the first two years of its implementation, as long as the Federal Reserve didn’t increase interest rates in response. It would bring us to 4 percent unemployment while boosting long-run productivity growth through public investment. The budget would increase near-term deficits to boost job creation, but reduce the deficit in 2019 and beyond.

Congressional Progressive Caucus co-chair Rep. Keith Ellison, D-Minn., said he was still reviewing the measure, but was encouraged there was money to address the city of Flint’s water crisis. The group unveiled its own budget proposal Tuesday, calling for preschool for all and $2 trillion in infrastructure spending through 2027.

“I understand we were up against the White House and both chambers of Congress, by that measure we did a great job,” Ellison said. “But still, is this what we would have done? No.”

With the subtitle “A Roadmap for the Resistance,” the Congressional Progressive Caucus’ “People's Budget,” isn't shy about its purpose in the Trump Era.

As Rep. Barbara Lee summarized it: “In stark contrast to President Trump’s cruel poverty budget, our progressive proposal is a plan for resistance and a roadmap to a safer, healthier and more prosperous America for all.”

While Democrats and Republicans fighting to claim victory in the deal on the fiscal 2017 spending plan, progressive Democrats are dreaming bigger.

? It presents a compelling alternative to Donald Trump’s “skinny budget.” Unlike Trump’s fanciful promises, it offers a sensible path out of the hole that we are in. Its values and priorities reflect those of the majority of Americans. The Progressive Caucus frames its budget around the central challenge of our time: how to make this economy work for working people, and redress the savage inequality that is undermining our democracy. It offers a strategy to get there, and a budget framed to support that strategy.

The Congressional Progressive Caucus is not an organization that gets a lot of press attention. With the Democrats out of power, they've been ignored as powerless fringe figures, with a scant 75 members in the House and one in the Senate to their name.

Yet there are plenty of reasons to start paying closer attention to them — especially this week, as they've just released their yearly budget plan. There is a strong chance in the future that the CPC budget will be the basic policy framework for the Democratic Party, which has a solid chance to retake power within the next few years.

To people who argue that the resistance to President Trump amounts to protest without a plan, the Congressional Progressive Caucus has delivered a detailed and robust rebuke.

Its fiscal 2018 budget proposal, subtitled “A Roadmap for the Resistance,” is virtually a point-by-point rebuttal of Trump administration policies, and offers plans for completing the work of economic recovery that has been thwarted by Republican-imposed fiscal austerity that began with the Tea Party takeover of Congress in 2010.

The Congressional Progressive Caucus (CPC) on Tuesday unveiled its “People’s Budget,” offering a vision of economic equality and fairness that comes in sharp contrast to the Trump administration’s “slash-and-burn approach to governing based on ideological extremism.”

The People’s Budget: A Roadmap for the Resistance (pdf) includes a $2 trillion infrastructure investment; closes corporate tax loopholes; ensures families don’t pay more than 10 percent of their income for childcare; and supports progressive measures such as a minimum wage increase, clean energy expansion, and debt-free college. Bottom line, the caucus said Tuesday, the document “puts political and economic power back in the hands of the people.”

There is an alternative to the Republican “Death Budget.” The “Peoples Budget” released by the Congressional Progressive Caucus on May 2, presents an alternative vision to invest in housing, jobs and $2 trillion for infrastructure; ensure clean air and water and renewable energy; increase, not cut, Social Security, Medicare and Medicaid; strengthen, not repeal, the Affordable Care Act; fund, not privatize, public education; end corporate tax loopholes, tax the 1%, and redirect wasteful Pentagon spending to meet domestic needs.

In stark contrast to Trump’s proposals for HUD, the Peoples Budget proposes to increase CDBG and HOME grants to cities and the National Housing Trust Fund to build much needed new housing. The Peoples Budget would provide $32 billion for the backlog of repairs in Public Housing; fully fund Public Housing operating budgets; and increase Section 8 Vouchers by 400,000. The Peoples Budget also would provide $12.8 billion for Rep. Waters bill to End Homelessness in America.

As the Republican Party and Donald Trump reach a spending agreement to avert a government shutdown, we’ll turn today to Hunter Blair of the Economic Policy Institute to explore a progressive vision of government spending.

That's the kind of rhetoric that excites groups such as the Congressional Progressive Caucus, which represents a larger-than-ever slice of the House Democrats. The group rolled out its own budget with the expectation that future candidates would crib from it.

"Job creation, child care, our version of tax reform," said Rep. Raul Grijalva, D-Ariz., the co-chairman of the caucus. "Those would be our rallying points both in terms of candidates and in pressuring the major candidates to adopt them. If we do well in 2018, we have a lot of momentum to insist that these are the issues to run on."

One of the stated goals of The People’s Budget is to increase access to affordable housing and to end homelessness. The proposal includes increased funding for the national Housing Trust Fund, Community Development Block Grants, and the HOME Investment Partnerships Program; rebuilding and rehabilitating public housing; restoring full funding for Section 202 Housing for the Elderly and Section 811 Housing for Persons with Disabilities; and expanding Housing Choice Vouchers. The People’s Budget adopts Representative Maxine Waters’(D-CA) “Ending Homelessness Act,” which would provide $12.8 billion to create more than 400,000 affordable homes.

The document, titled "A New Foundation for American Greatness" contrasts sharply with the People's Budget released by the Congressional Progressive Caucus (CPC) earlier this month, which offered a robust plan to boost GDP, increase economic and employment growth, and create new jobs, all while supporting programs and agencies that protect working people and the environment.

The White House plans to unveil President Trump’s detailed 2018 budget tomorrow. While the people wait for its release it is worth noting that earlier this month the Congressional Progressive Caucus (CPC) released ‘The People’s Budget: A Roadmap for the Resistance’, which contains their plan for what the U.S. budget should be. Their budget was the first release in the 2018 fiscal year budget season, coming before either the President’s budget or any proposal from the Budget Committees.

Fortunately, Democrats do have an answer for that. They just don’t talk about it nearly enough. That answer can be found in “The People’s Budget: A Roadmap for the Resistance,” which was released in early May by the Congressional Progressive Caucus — which Sanders co-founded — and has been endorsed by a broad coalition of 60 organizations spanning the so-called Clinton-Sanders divide, from Planned Parenthood and NARAL to AFSCME and Change to Win to the Sierra Club and Friends of the Earth to the African American Health Alliance and the Racial and Ethnic Health Disparities Coalition to VoteVets, Just Foreign Policy, Daily Kos and beyond.

Instead, the most practical and humane direction is summarized in the “People’s Budget,” released by the Congressional Progressive Caucus. It reasserts the role of the public sector in driving growth and innovation. It revives Franklin Roosevelt’s promise of an economic bill of rights—to decent work, affordable housing, world-class public education, guaranteed health care, and retirement security. It assumes that meeting basic needs will make people more, not less, entrepreneurial, more able to take a risk, to start a business. It realizes that social deficits—poverty, unnecessary sickness and death, homelessness, environmental despoliation—are far more destructive than fiscal deficits. It understands that extreme inequality is a greater threat to our democracy than any foreign enemy, and that catastrophic climate change is a real and present danger.

While Trump’s plan slashes worker safety and job training programs, and eviscerates food stamps (SNAP) and other life-preserving supports for poor people, the People’s Budget beefs up labor protections so America’s workers don’t get injured or stiffed on the job so frequently. It also expands food stamps and child nutrition funding—which studies repeatedly show provide a Vitamin-B-like boost to public health and local economies.

Beautiful and budget are two words that typically don’t go together in my thinking. But that’s what The People’s Budget is. It’s a humanitarian vision anchored in a realistic fiscal and economic analysis. That means, it can be done! What’s needed is political will.

If you place the Trump Administration budget and the People’s Budget side by side, the contrast is stark.

Anyone who has doubts about what’s at stake in the battle for the future of the Democratic Party should read The People’s Budget: A Roadmap for the Resistance, released in May by the Congressional Progressive Caucus. (Comprised of 75 U.S. representatives and Sen. Bernie Sanders, the CPC is the largest caucus in the House.)

As an economic manifesto that puts “political and economic power back in the hands of the people,” the People’s Budget is not only a rebuke to Trump and his draconian 2018 budget, but a challenge to a Democratic Party that has for too long elevated the well-being of Corporate America over that of working people and the environment.